PayPal invests in gifting solution Loop Commerce

Loop Commerce closes the "loop" with gifting, and PayPal likes what it sees

Gift giving can be quite the ass pain when you don’t know a person’s size, preferred color/style, or their address. I’m no better—my closet is full of clothes I’ll never wear because my mother-in-law bought them for me in an attempt to bring color to my wardrobe. She tries, God bless her.

So for those of us who have picky tastes—and for the people who are socially obligated to buy us gifts this holiday season—there’s Loop Commerce, a SaaS solution that allows gift recipients to effectively return a gift before it’s even given. Now, fresh off its $7 million Series A round, the company is announcing that PayPal has contributed an undisclosed amount to its Series A.

Existing Series A investors include Mark Carges, CTO of eBay; Don Katz, Founder and CEO of Audible and EVP of Amazon; Chuck Geiger, CTO of Chegg and former CTO of PayPal; Roy Rubin, Founder of Magento; Michael Scharff, previously SVP of Retail of Toys “R” Us; Novel TMT; and Oren Zeev.

“We are impressed with the Loop Commerce team, approach and technology,” said Don Kingsborough, VP of Global Strategic Development for PayPal, in a statement. “Improving the online gift-giving and -receiving experience is of great importance to both retailers and consumers. We believe Loop Commerce represents the next stage in the evolution of the multi-billion dollar gift-card industry, empowering retailers and creating new opportunities through next-generation gifting experiences.”

To recap, the solution works by integrating with a retailer’s website and essentially making the gift-giving process a collaborative one. Rather than guestimate your friend’s size or try to buy her a hot pink sweater when YOU KNOW SHE PREFERS NEUTRALS AND EARTH TONES, you can simply prepay for the item, enter your friend’s email address, and send her an invite to come to the site to identify her size, style preference, and shipping address. If, for whatever reason, your friend doesn’t like the item you picked out for her, she can exchange the item before it ever ships, thus saving the retailer time and money.

Or, you know, you could save everyone the headache and just start giving people cash for Christmas.

This holiday season, gift returns will account for 20-40% of the total holiday sales volume, according to the National Retail Federation.

Don Kingsborough will serve as PayPal’s observer on Loop Commerce’s board. Kingsborough was previously founder and CEO of gift card and prepaid payments network Blackhawk Network.

The company is currently in private beta but has signed multiple partners, including large and small retailers.

Loop Commerce previously raised $7 million, along with a $1 million seed round. The company said previously that it plans to use the new capital to hire new engineers, develop the platform, and focus on sales and marketing.